Games Elite: Dangerous

[Moriath]

Argh!

Damned infuriating game. thought I would potter out to an asteroid field to see if any ne'er do wells were skulking about trying to attack miners and come across a handful of ships all taking on an anaconda ( i think it was, bloody big anyway). So i decide to pile in as they all had wanted status. Kill a couple and then the feds turn up which is handy as the last ones a bit tough.

Then my ship gets scanned and apparently I've got a 21k fine for contraband cargo (military plans id found floating in space that I'd forgotten about), then in the act of killing the last guy some dumbass fed ship flies straight through my sights and takes a couple of hits so then they all turn on me when he dies and shoot the crap out of my ship before i can get away (hull down to 15% when i finally jumped clear).

bounty made 10k
fines + repairs + ammo -30k

basically written the last 2 nights of progress off and im back to square one.......

It's supposed to be dangerous. From what I hear most write off at least one start while learning

 

[Shagrat]

Yep can see why people would start again. I'm not though . Infuriating or not I'm loving it so far, the moment when I swept into towards the mining ship near the rings of a massive plant and the t my slowly resolved into just masses of rocks tumbling through space which I had to navigate through was just beautiful. I can handle the frustrations when I get moments like that

 

[Poag]

So, after some other mates have yapped on about it for ages. Poag got Elite.

And Thus CMDR Uirel was born and the sidewinder was shitty.

 

[chipper]

so its up for sale on steam atm just short of a tenner is it worth it does anyone still play it?

 

[TdC]

I've been dying to get back in to it. Played it a bit in the very very beta, but have such a stack of games I want to get through before I start again...pfff

 

[Exioce]

A few mates just dived in off the back of the sale.

Booted it up for the first time since March. Slowly getting to grips with the new Power Play mechanics, and the new ship choices etc.

 

[Shagrat]

I picked it up in the sale as well. Just trying to get back into it now.

 

[TdC]

haven't run it in a while. gotta update the launcher and the game. gonna take aaaages -.-

all @chipper's fault

 

[Ormorof]

Gonna grab it tonight been meaning to get it for a while

 

[TdC]

holy shit new patch. now I have to dl stuff all over again

 

[TdC]

I have a completely tricked-out Sidewinder with all the trimmings, weaps, etc, even vacuum resistant socks. None of this helped me out a damn when I jumped into a SSS out of curiosity and surprised 6 or 7 pirates. Who then proceeded to demonstrate to me that pirates don't like surprises. With lasers. To my face.

 

[Ormorof]

Gonna firejit up today any noob tips?

 

[Jupitus]

Gonna firejit up today any noob tips?

Spend a bit of time configuring your flight controls using the training sessions....

 

[Ormorof]

Yeah i launched straight away then triednto get out of station

Have it set up in same way i play wing commander now so im good to go again

 

[Exioce]

Tagging criminals engaged with police with a few blasts seems sufficient to reap the full bounty more often than not. Can make so much money even in a sidewinder!

 

[TdC]

Yus, but blasting them is SO SATISFYING

I got interdicted at about 1am last night and let myself be caught. turns out it was a Master ranked NPC in a Vulture. Took me 10 minutes to take him out with my tiny Sidewinder at the expense of half my hull and a lot of swearing. He took off all my shields with two shots so I had to do some fancy flying When he was toast I got > 40K credits bounty lol

 

[Ormorof]

ive mostly been flying around aimlessly

got interdicted once but the interdictor just flew away (NPC i guess)

managed one cargo delivery mission and got 9k credits but they seem quite rare (so much for that plan)

any tips on how to advance it seems all the juicy missions are locked away until further stuff is done but only available missions seem way out of my league

 

[TdC]

Well tbh the trick is to not do aimless things. So do a bit of flying about, try and find new astronomical objects, scan them and fly on. you have to get > 20LY from your object's site to be able to sell the data on it, so do that and sell. this will gain you exploration points. At the same time, use something like the EDDB to match where you are to a profitable trading setup. Use their fuzzy search. As long as *any* trade you make turns a profit, you will put points into your trading rank. Do a bit of trading. Even with a 4T cargo bay on a Sidewinder, you can make some cash pretty fast.

For fighting, your stock -stock- Sidewinder is a bit naff unless you're a ridiculously ace pilot. at the very least, you will want an upgraded power distributor unit. Ideally you will want an A-1 rated unit, but that will cost you. Especially since you will also need an upgraded PSU in your ship for that. Anyway, any kill you make puts points into your pilot's ranking. Re fighting effectively, learn to switch power between shields, engines and weaps in a useful and meaningful manner. Re ship upgrades for fighting, think like so: PD > THRUST > SHIELDS > PSU > WEAPS. E.g. maneuverability trumps better weapons. If you have any cash left...meh, try hull upgrades. Fighting can get lucrative very fast. Killing a -comparatively- high ranking NPC like I did nets you a lot of credits, at the risk of losing it all. You don't have to be a bounty hunter, you can -yarrr!- be a pirate. Thing is, atm I'd call piracy more of a lifestyle choice than anything else due to the fact that making money in ED is actually fairly easy. Sure, you can have other people buy your cargos for you, but it's just so much hassle to take it off them and sell it on some black market. Imo ofc.

For exploring / couriering data (i.e. *not* goods, you need cargo space for goods), add an upgraded FSD into the mix above. In fact, if you're into hardcore travelling, the best possible FSD is what you want, which also -like fighting- comes with the bonus of having to upgrade your PSU. For travel, remember that D class components tend to be the lightest. A ship with less mass can use it's FSD to jump further, so being the lightest you can be is king. Some people even exchange shields / weaps / cargo space for nothing just to be able to jump further.

Re ships in general, use a site like Coriolis to have a look at ship builds before you actually do the deed. This will let you see what mass and power requirements you are looking at for a given loadout. Very handy indeed.

Re all the above: any bounty, courier services or trading is shit if you die. Why? Buying back your ship from insurance or scratch isn't all of it: failing missions gets you a ratings hit. Dying before you turn in a lot of bounty or combat vouchers nets you nothing. Dying before you turn in your exploration data nets you nothing. Dying when you just sunk a shitload of credits into some cargo...nets you...yup, nothing

Note, I've not even touched on power-play or the combat simulation play yet, not to mention the new Horizons beta/patch/thing that lets you land on -some- planets. This opens up the potential for bases, etc, etc, etc. omg wtf bbq!

 

[TdC]

for shits and giggles I changed my Sidewinder loadout to a beam laser and a cannon. set the cannon to firegroup 2. watched pirate shields burn away like paper under the laser, and then surprise motherfucker wtfpwn them with a cannon shell. ofc with the tiny thing that is a class 1 cannon, an Asp/Vulture is about the biggest you can go before it just takes too long to kill the enemy and you run too much risk of eating a bunch of lasers in return.

so, after making a shitload of money, I upgraded to a Viper and am now experimenting with different weapon load-outs. The ship can only jump like...6LY or so, but that's ok cos I'm being all strategic. I'm in a system with several ringed gas giants and there are so many different kinds of resource extraction sites that the poor pir8s just can't stay away. I'm currently shuttling back and forth between a station and a site located about 1LS from each other. The station has a high-tech economy so I have a choice of 15 different ships and just about everything that could possibly fit in a Viper. Just now I was playing with two medium fragment cannons and two small burst lasers and I took out a Python earning me a very sweet bounty indeed. I did for five pirates and cashed in something like 256K. FC is very short range though, so you really have to get up close and personal with your foes. Didn't really like that, so I'm switching things around again with two small cannons and two medium beam lasers (I know, I know). An hour or so of wasting space scum and I will reverse that load-out for med cannons and small beams. Going to have to upgrade the FSD to get some jump range on this Viper and see about starting up some kill missions. I reckon that med cannons will waste just about anything once shields are down as long as I keep enough oomph in reserve to dodge people thinking they're allowed to shoot back at me

 

[Urgat]

Teeds.

I HIGHLY recommend trying a full multicannon load out in the viper.

2x small MC
2x med multicannon.

It's serious fun. (If you don't mind having to hop back the the staton to reload now and again)

I used to be able to slot in behind anaconda engine decks and stay there early avoiding all return fire whilst unloading lead-death.

(Assuming your other modules are A rated of course)

Currently saving for the imperial cutter. For now my trusty imperial clipper does the job nicely.

 

[TdC]

Yeah chumlar I have top rated kit on the Viper atm, hence why I had to compromise with the weaps while ensuring I had enough reserved for insurance. Not the PSU or FSD yet, obv, cos its not needed. I've only got about 1M credits or so hehe.

 

[Urgat]

I think your on my friends list?

If so I can drop you off some palladium to sell if you're short of funds.

 

[TdC]

Oooh that would be really kind of you, but its cool mate. By tonight I should be a couple M's up with a lot of pir8 debris in my wake

That said, it would be cool to wing up sometime and have some fun imo. Maybe once my HOTAS throttle finally breaks and I get a new one. It will need some epic action!

 

[Shagrat]

I think your on my friends list?

If so I can drop you off some palladium to sell if you're short of funds.

short of funds?!?! he's a millionaire!

 

[TdC]

I need about 75M to trick out the ship I want to get, so....oh, about 150M short of funds

 

[Shagrat]

I need about 75M to trick out the ship I want to get, so....oh, about 150M short of funds

I'm still at the just enough for an eagle stage.

 

[TdC]

Be careful to keep at least 10% of the purchase+kit out price of your current ship in reserve for ship insurance. Perhaps even a couple times that if you're going pirate or bounty hunter

 

[Urgat]

currently siting on about 80mil total assets.

Imperial Cutter gonna clock in at about 200million... so a long way to go yet

 

[TdC]

Gave it a few runs today to unwind. First RS I visited, no pir8s to be seen, even after 10 mins of loitering. I played in the asteroids for a bit, but I'm in space for the money after all, so I left. I got interdicted on the way to another RS by an aggressive NPC in an Imperial Dropship. I got him, but he got me for about half my hull. Still, some 40K credits earned. I decided I was tired and would give it one more go before calling it a night.

I patched up the ship and went to the other RS. No pir8s here either, but after a bit a wing of 3 turned up: two Imperial Eagles and a Vulture. I got cocky and took out an 'eagle on my first pass, but the Vulture got me with something, and I had the surviving 'eagle all over me and couldn't shake him. Some Federal Defense guys came to my aid, but I was already on < 40% health due to the harassment from the eagle and whatever the fuck the Vulture had hit me with. I had to run and did some leet dodging -really cool to see the shots I dodged flying past me pfff- before hiding behind an asteroid with my SYS power on max to get my shields back. The Vulture got set on by the Feds but the remaining ' eagle was still looking for me. I popped out of cover to take a shot but totally messed up and that lead to a turning fight with the one ship that you really don't want to do that with. While this was happening, the Vulture got me AGAIN and left me completely dead in space: my thrusters shut down, the computer was screaming at me about power, the canopy was compromised and I had 5% hull left!! Many swears occurred!!

luckily for me whatever it was that was toast decided to un-toast itself and reboot. I suddenly had attitude control and thrust back so I immediately hit boost and GTFO'd. While under max thrust in a random direction, I spun the ship around by turning off flight assist and leaning on my lateral thruster controls and saw targeting pips flash up to track a dot across my field of view. I squeezed the triggers and toasted the Imperial Eagle that had just given me such a bad time. Only 5K credits, FML! Anyway, down in the asteroid field I saw the Feds get the Vulture for which I got...nada as I had not actually gotten any shots on target with this guy. Bahs. I turned around and set course for the station hoping that nobody would interdict me because I had exhausted about a month's worth of leet skills just staying alive, and was in bad need of sleep. Happily enough for me, the Viper's such a small ship -for all it's meaty feel and hefty punch- that it only cost me 1600 credits to fully repair and 340 credits to rearm. Until next time folks!

 

[Urgat]

Sound like fun

Vipers are for strafing passes at ludicrous speeds. Not turning